BERKSWELL remain hot on the heels of the two sides leading the league after they came away from Shrewsbury with maximum points.
Invited to bat first, the visitors to London Road were soon in trouble with Mark Best (8), Chris Whittock (0), Steven Sandhu (1), and Nick James (10) all dropping by the eighth over to leave Berkswell in the precarious position at 23 for 4.
However, for the second week running, skipper Dominic Ostler and Oliver Haley stemmed the loss of wickets and, over the course of the next 20 overs helped push the visitors to 96 before they were both out.
The visitor’s fortunes then changed spectacularly as Stephen Parker and Amir Shabir put together a 31 run partnership in only five overs with Parker taking a shine to the bowling.
Parker produced a sparkling innings that saw the ball savagely hit to all parts of the ground as he scored 60 to move his side up to 173 before eventually falling caught and bowled by Dan Manders.
The remaining batsmen were able to add valuable runs that enabled Berkswell to finish on 204 all out in the 47th over.
Spurred on by the miraculous batting recovery, a fired up Berkswell took to the field and opening bowlers Worrall and Brignull soon had the home side reeling.
Worrall claimed the wicket of Steve Leach (0) with the first ball to be followed by Brignull at the other end who had Ed Foster (2) caught behind by Haley off the fourth ball of the second over.
A period of containment of followed but Parton (24) was caught at slip by Ostler, and Cox (28) was caught in the deep by Sandhu leaving the hosts on 67 for 4.
Only Anthony Parker (45) offered any substantial resistance, but the loss of his wicket in the 45th over with the scoreboard reading 149 ended any real chance the home side had of reaching the target.
The remaining wickets fell quickly and Shrewsbury were eventually all out in the 50th over still 22 runs short.
Elsewhere, Dorridge went to Brockhampton on Saturday and won by nine runs due mainly to a superb all round performance from their captain Dave Ball.
In a powerful batting diaply, Ball and Ishtiaq scored 194 to take the score to 234 when McIlroy had Ishtiaq caught for 64 which included six 4’s and a six.
By this time, Ball had reached his century, but when on 144 he was caught off Powell and Dorridge finished on 283 all out.
The reply got off to a strong start thanks to Langford (30), Irvine (76) and Boroughs (45) who took Brockhampton to within sight of a win with a stand of 99.
However, Mahroof Azam had other ideas as he dismissed both of them to make it 194-4 but at 226-5 Brockhampton were still in the driving seat although behind the asking rate. With the help of a run out though, Ball and Azam cleaned up the tail as the hosts were dismissed for 274 to give Dorridge 20 points to take them to mid-table.
